Giuliani’s New Tactic: Arguing Trump Can Literally Get Away With Murder

For those who spent the weekend enjoying themselves rather than fretting about the future of American democracy, we just learned that the constitutional crisis looming over the Russia investigation is already underway. The New York Times obtained a 20-page letter Trump’s attorneys sent Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team in January, arguing that he could not have obstructed justice because he has total, unfettered authority over the Justice Department. Trump could “terminate the inquiry or even exercise his power to pardon if so desired,” they claim.

On Sunday Rudy Giuliani — who replaced John Dowd, one the attorneys who penned the letter — went on TV to elaborate on this expansive view of executive power. As usual, Giuliani gave a freewheeling performance that generally made his client sound guilty. He tried to distance himself from the arguments laid out in the letter, telling This Week that his predecessor put forth “the broadest possible point,” but “we don’t have to go there” because there are less constitutionally questionable ways of proving Trump’s actions were justified.

When pushed, however, Giuliani said he generally agrees that the president has stunningly broad powers — even if using them would be political suicide. He said that while he believes the courts would conclude the president has the right to pardon himself, it’s “unthinkable” as it would lead to “immediate impeachment.”

When George Stephanopoulos asked if the president could shut down an FBI investigation into whether he’d accepted a bribe or committed murder, Giuliani replied:

I would not go that far. I would not go that far, George. I mean, John — you’d have to ask John exactly what he’s relying on for that. I wouldn’t go that far. I think under circumstances where there’s no — at best there’s ambiguity as to whether there was intent.

But in his conversation with NBC’s Meet the Press, Giuliani was more confident that the president is constrained only by “Congress’s impeachment power,” not his own Justice Department. He said that while he only agrees with about 80 percent of the argument laid out by Trump’s former legal team, he thinks a sitting president can’t be indicted or subpoenaed. “That’s the part of it I agree with the most,” he said. “Can’t be indicted, can’t be questioned because it interferes with the presidency.”

By the end of the day, Giuliani had come up with a far more concise, and vivid, explanation of the president’s powers. “In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Giuliani told HuffPost Sunday night. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”

Echoing Trump’s claim during the campaign that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters, Giuliani explained that if there’s a criminal in the Oval Office, the law can’t touch him until the Legislative branch acts.

“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”

Scholars are actually divided on whether the president can be indicted, but there is general agreement that the easiest way to deal with a felonious president is to impeach him first, and then indict. As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley notes, for decades pondering this question has been a parlor game among constitutional-law professors, along with “presidential emoluments, self-pardons, and presidential obstruction.” Now the Trump administration,”has the dubious distinction of moving all of these questions from the realms of the hypothetical to the actual.”

Though Giuliani was speaking theoretically, it’s still stunning to hear the president’s lawyer musing about him murdering a specific political enemy and getting away with it — or at least, it should be.

It’s easy to dismiss Giuliani’s media ramblings, especially because half the time they seem to hurt the president’s case. But occasionally some truth slips out, like when he admitted to CNN last week that the strategy behind the Spygate push is to shift public opinion against Mueller, “because eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach.”

In one day, Giuliani went from arguing that the president probably has the right to impede an investigation and pardon himself, to saying that he can’t even be indicted for murder. Though he repeatedly claimed that the president has no interest in doing any of this, he put forth the idea that the president is above the law in every imaginable scenario — and once we’re debating the legality of our kinglike president committing murder, a little obstruction of justice doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Giuliani assures us that we don’t have to worry about there being no legal check on Trump’s power (according to his interpretation), because if the president commits criminal acts there’s a political solution: impeachment. But it’s already unclear what Trump would have to do for the Republican-controlled legislature to turn on him, and Giuliani is trying to wear away the political will to hold the president accountable for anything but the most heinous crimes.

After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, uses an unofficial online messaging service for official White House business, including with foreign contacts, his lawyer told the House Oversight Committee late last year.

The lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he was not aware if Mr. Kushner had communicated classified information on the service, WhatsApp, and said that because he took screenshots of the communications and sent them to his official White House account or the National Security Council, his client was not in violation of federal records laws.

In a letter disclosing the information, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said that he was investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act by members of the Trump administration, including Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. He accused the White House of stonewalling his committee on information it had requested for months.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to stop disparaging the late Sen. John McCain, calling the Vietnam war hero “a dear friend” and defending him against the president’s criticisms. …

Ernst’s remarks came during a town hall meeting at a high school in Adel, Iowa, where several attendees voiced anger about Trump’s attacks about McCain. One attendee described McCain as a “genuine war hero” and called Trump’s comments about McCain “cowardly.”

“I do not appreciate his tweets,” Ernst said, when pressed by the attendee why she didn’t previously speak out more forcefully. “John McCain is a dear friend of mine. So, no I don’t agree with President Trump and he does need to stop.”

As we anticipate the end of Mueller, signs of a wind-down:-SCO prosecutors bringing family into the office for visits-Staff carrying out boxes-Manafort sentenced, top prosecutor leaving-office of 16 attys down to 10-DC US Atty stepping up in cases-grand jury not seen in 2mo

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.

Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.

Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.

… Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and more than a dozen other defendants charged in a Florida prostitution sting filed a motion to stop the public release of surveillance videos and other evidence taken by police.

Attorneys filed the motion Wednesday in Palm Beach County court. The State of Florida does not agree with the request, according to the filing.

In the motion, the attorneys asked the court to grant a protective order to safeguard the confidentiality of the materials seized from the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, and “in particular the videos, until further order of the court.”

Two years in, White House aides are dismayed to discover the president likes lobbing pointless, nasty attacks at people like George Conway and John McCain

But the saga has left even White House aides accustomed to a president who bucks convention feeling uncomfortable. While the controversies may have pushed aside some bad news, they also trampled on Trump’s Wednesday visit to an army tank manufacturing plant in swing state Ohio.

“For the most part, most people internally don’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole,” said one former senior White House official. A current senior White House official said White House aides are making an effort “not to discuss it in polite company.” Another current White House official bemoaned the tawdry distraction. “It does not appear to be a great use of our time to talk about George Conway or dead John McCain. … Why are we doing this?

When Mr. Trump was running for president, he promised to personally stop American companies from shutting down factories and moving plants abroad, warning that he would punish them with public backlash and higher taxes. Many companies scrambled to respond to his Twitter attacks, announcing jobs and investments in the United States — several of which never materialized.

But despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to compel companies to build and hire, they appear to be increasingly prioritizing their balance sheets over political backlash.

“I don’t think there’s as much fear,” said Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis communications for the public relations firm Kglobal. “At first it was a shock to the system, but now we’ve all adjusted. We take it in stride, and I think that’s what the business community is doing.”

There’s no specific stipulation that Milo must be heard, so it could be worse

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to tie research and education grants made to colleges and universities to more aggressive enforcement of the First Amendment, according to a draft of the order viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The order instructs agencies including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Defense to ensure that public educational institutions comply with the First Amendment, and that private institutions live up to their own stated free-speech standards.

The order falls short of what some university officials feared would be more sweeping or specific measures; it doesn’t prescribe any specific penalty that would result in schools losing research or other education grants as a result of specific policies.